A Cursed Boat

"I did it?"

Zheng Yang stood by the side of his boat for quite a while, feeling rather puzzled, before the success actually registered.

According to the travelogue, crafting a spirit vessel was a very difficult feat. This was largely due to the difficulty in acquiring the incredibly rare scroll needed for the process, not to mention the low success rate. Even if a person managed to gather all the required materials, the success rate was less than 10 percent

The most difficult part was the final conversion process. 90 percent of failures took place during the final stage, with the final activation of the magic formation and the merging of it with the vessel, and usually resulted in the vessel crumbling altogether.

The simpler the vessel, the higher the rate of success.

Of course, with that being said, there were probably few who would dare to go about performing the ritual on something that was simply cobbled together with several planks, and that barely resembled a boat.

Zheng Yang could sense the connection between himself and that boat beside him. It was as if the boat were an extension of his own body: he could clearly perceive everything about it.

A transparent interface hovered before his eyes, displaying information about the spirit vessel, along with a miniature diagram of it. He could make the page display any part of the boat by will alone.

All of this served as solid proof that the boat had been successfully converted into a spirit vessel.

The most difficult part—the conversion process—was finished, and the boat had been brought to life by the magic formation. He would just have to take his time to modify it into the boat he wanted.

"The reason why Mom and Dad didn't make a spirit vessel themselves was probably that they were afraid the ritual would end up a failure," Zheng Yang thought. "There's only one scroll, after all. But all well. I've already used up the scroll, and I sure hope they won't be mad at me for using it when they see me again."

Zheng Yang sighed and looked at the wound on the palm of his left hand, only to find that it had miraculously healed.

He wasn't in the mood to sleep at the moment, so he went to lie in his boat and started to read the information on the interface.

Basic Information:

Vessel: Level One Spirit Vessel

Vessel Spirit: Scaly Demon Bug (larva)

Spirit Power Core: Moonlight Shell

Spirit Power Reserve: 30/100

Base Speed: 2 knots

Attack Boost: 5%

Defense Boost: 5%

Power Boost: 5%

…

Equipment Data:

Main Drive: Manual oars

Auxiliary Drive: None

Figurehead: Scaly Demon Bug

Figurehead Skill: None

Remark: Because rituals such as sacrifice, summoning, bloody spirit-sealing, etc. were used during the conversion of the spirit vessel, the vessel attracts eldritch entities to a certain degree. When the spirit vessel or the owner of said vessel approaches these eldritch entities, they'll attract the attention of said entities. This cannot be undone, even if the spirit vessel is destroyed, which is why the spirit vessel is also known as a "Cursed Vessel." The curse can be suppressed through the use of sacred relics, however. In addition, the spirit vessel will gradually affect and alter the bloodline of its owner, enabling the owner to gain the bloodline of a witch. The higher the level of the spirit vessel's evolution, the stronger the power bestowed by said bloodline. The owner of the spirit vessel will be able to improve their ability to repel the eldritch entities by evolving their spirit vessel, which is why the spirit vessel is also known as the "evolving vessel."

…

What the hell?

Zheng Yang was dumbfounded.

Ill omens, eldritch entities, curses…

"I won't be able to shake those nasty things off even if I destroy the spirit vessel!?" he thought.

"Why wasn't any of this mentioned in that travelogue!?

"Is this why Mom and Dad never built a spirit vessel in the first place? Because they knew about this?"

Zheng Yang didn't find the "bloodline of a witch" that was mentioned in the latter part of the remark all that enticing after learning what the curse entailed, even though he still had no idea what it meant to have such a bloodline.

He couldn't help but feel shivers run down his spine after reading all of that. He straightened up and looked around, finding no eldritch entities for the time being.

There was a wooden sculpture of a black flying bug at the bow of the ship. Its wings were outstretched, and it looked like it was doing its best trying to fly.

This sculpture was the boat's figurehead.

The vessel, which barely resembled a boat, since it was cobbled together from planks and scrap wood from broken boats, had been optimized and perfected by the ritual and the magic formation. The seams between the planks were completely sealed off, and the bow was slightly raised, while the shipboard was heightened, making the vessel look streamlined.

The spirit vessel's self-optimization process had transformed it from something that barely resembled a boat, and that would definitely sink if it went out on the water, into a true, seaworthy vessel.

There was a shell that was about the size of a fist where the center of the magic formation had once been. It was milky-white in color, like moonlight, and it looked as if it were naturally apart of the boat.

The boat was a beauty, and Zheng Yang would have been very pleased with it if it hadn't been for the information he'd read about the boat's curse, which made him feel rather nauseous, as if he had just eaten a fly.

"One more thing," Zheng Yang thought to himself. "How is this thing gonna stock spirit power?

"My body could make use of the spirit power, but none of that was mentioned in the travelogue."

The travelogue stressed how to craft the spirit vessel, and it was as detailed as it could be. However, there was little else in the way of other information, and he was feeling rather puzzled at the moment thanks to that.

"Alright, whatever," Zheng Yang thought. "I'll sleep it off, and when I work on the boat tomorrow, I'll find out more about whatever it is I don't yet know."

He was completely exhausted at the moment from slaving away at crafting the boat all day. He stepped out of the boat and silently willed it to tuck itself away, causing the image of the boat on the back of his hand to warm. The spirit vessel before him then disappeared right there and then without a trace, stowing itself away in the pocket space. He headed to his bedroom without bothering to shower, and after he was done packing up the containers and things into the box, he lay on his bed, spacing out for quite a bit before dozing off.

Darkness fell outside his window without him realizing it, blotting out the moonlight. It approached like a beast without making a sound, enveloping the compound he was in.

He then had a dream. He dreamt that he was steering a massive spirit vessel in the ocean, and that he was the king of the seas, or something of that sort… but the scene changed all of a sudden, and he found himself in an unfamiliar place. Everything was hazy, and the entire place was shrouded in mist. He couldn't see two meters in front of him.

I'm… in a dream now?

He stood in place, not moving. He became convinced that he was truly in a dream, even though everything looked strikingly real —so real, in fact, that it was indistinguishable from reality.

Everything was dead silent, and the mist around him was stifling and eerie—the kind that immediately makes one think of scary places such as haunted houses, graveyards, and the likes.

The ground beneath him started to sway slightly, and there was the sound of sloshing water. He looked at his feet and found that he was standing on wooden board flooring, and it was right then and there that he realized that he was on the deck of a ship.

"Was this dream brought about by the successful conversion of my spirit vessel?" Zheng Yang thought. "Does this have something to do with the boat? What is the meaning of this dream? Is there any danger lurking around?"

Zheng Yang tried walking around and was unable to tell where he was going for quite a while. He was only able to make his way forward one step at a time, with his gaze firmly planted on his feet.

After walking seven to eight steps, he still was unable to find anything other than the deck beneath his feet. However, he suddenly heard footsteps coming towards him from the left.

He stopped moving right away and kept his eyes locked forward. A thick rotting stench floated over to him first, like pungent salted fish. Then, the very next second, he saw a weird fish with four limbs sticking out of its side walking straight towards him, a tattered bone blade in its hands.

That fish looked so ugly that it made him never want to eat fish again.

He had imagined such monsters to be humanoid creatures with fish heads, or fish creatures with humans heads, but he had never imagined such a monster to be some fish that had arms sticking out where the gills were supposed to be, and legs sticking out of the tail end. The weird creature had a rotten body and completely white eyes, and it walked right up to him like a person.

No matter how he looked at it, the creature looked like it was a person stuffed in a dead fish's body, with their limbs somehow managing to stick out.

But then again, that clearly wasn't the case.

The weird fish creature spotted Zheng Yang and shrieked. Then, it lifted its bone blade and brought it down on him. It moved so quickly that it was actually somewhat faster than an average grown person.

Zheng Yang's reaction speed was too slow, and he just barely managed to shift his body out of the way, resulting in the blade slashing his left shoulder instead of his neck, which was where the fish was aiming.

"Holy sh**..."

The pain felt so real that it infuriated him, and he recklessly charged towards the dead fish monster, actually managing to bring it to the ground. He clenched his teeth, ignoring the pain shooting through his left shoulder, and pinned down the fish thing's right arm, which was holding the blade, before repeatedly punching the fish thing's head as hard as he could.

The fish thing's head was so slippery that his attacks were actually useless. After punching it several times, he realized that the fish thing didn't know how to attack with its bare hands, instead trying as hard as it could to shake him off. An idea came to his mind, and he wrestled the blade from the fish thing, stood up, and repeatedly brought down the blade where he thought the fish's neck was supposed to be.

The blade was so dull that he was only able to cut little more than an inch deep with each strike. The fish thing kept shrieking as it struggled to get to its feet, but it was quickly brought down by Zheng Yang each time it tried to get up. He hammered on the fish thing for several dozen times before it finally stopped moving, and he himself was completely exhausted.

The very next moment, the fish monster's dead body turned into dust, leaving behind only a blob of white light, which then shot into Zheng Yang's body. Zheng Yang was stunned for a second as fragments of memories emerged from the depths of his mind—memories of bringing that bone blade down countless times.

He went on to consciously explore those memories, which then played out in his mind over and over again, like a movie. It was unclear how many times the memories played out before they eventually coalesced into one single memory of striking the knife down. The move was imprinted on his mind, as if he had practiced it dozens of times himself, becoming so familiar with it that it was pure instinct.

It was hard to say how long the entire process took. By the time he snapped back to reality after learning the move, he found himself standing on the ship deck again, surrounded by thick mist.

The wound on his shoulder remained, and the pain radiating from it washed over him in waves, making him feel afraid. He realized that he shouldn't have touched those memories. Fortunately, no other monsters had appeared during that time. Otherwise, he definitely would've kicked the bucket right there on the spot, and there was no telling what real-world implications that would have.

The first thing he did after getting up was summoning his boat in his compound. The image on the back of his hand warmed, and his spirit vessel reappeared in the compound.

"10 points of spirit power reduced from the reserve?"

Seeing that the information page indicated that the spirit power reserve was down to 20/100, Zheng Yang thoroughly inspected the boat before realizing that putting the boat into the pocket space and summoning it out again had resulted in the decrease in power.

He frowned hard after finding out what had happened, exasperated at how he'd exhausted one-third of the boat's reserve before managing to find out how to recharge it.

He took the travelogue out during breakfast and carefully flipped through its pages.

After flipping through the book for over an hour, he suddenly jumped. The travelogue didn't explain how to recharge the spirit vessel, but it talked about how the sails of the spirit vessel would pulse under the moonlight, almost as if the boat were breathing. It later mentioned that the vessel's spirit power reserve would be replenished by 20 percent by the time the sun rose.

"Isn't this an indirect way of telling the reader that the vessel can be recharged by exposing it to moonlight?" Zheng Yang thought.

"But why can't it be recharged by sunlight, then?"

Zheng Yang then flipped through the travelogue's pages again and again, but was unable to find any other useful information.

"Well, it seems like I should start making the sail, then."

Crafting and installing a sail on the boat was the next part of his plan anyway. However, a spirit vessel was so special that one couldn't simply attach a regular sail to it and call it a day. He had to collect some materials and work with the boat's magic formation to vitalize the sail so that it was part of the boat's inherent spirit structure, before it could do what it was supposed to do.

He'd initially thought that the spirit sail was used only for propelling the spirit vessel, but it seemed at the moment that there was more to it than he'd realized.

He had been sulking over the boat's curse for a while in the beginning, but since there was nothing he could do to change that, his devil-may-care attitude took over instead.

After all, he had died once, so he what did he have to be afraid of? So, he decided to continue working on his spirit vessel. Plus, he recalled that he had the bloodline of a witch as well, so maybe things weren't as bleak as he'd originally thought.

"If push comes to shove, I'll just find some sacred relic later and suppress the curse then," he thought.

"300 grams of mercury, 500 grams of fresh sap from fluorescent vine roots, two web sacks from a starback wolf spider… The first two items shouldn't be a problem to get. It's only those web sacks that'll be a bit tricky."

He had used a good portion of a bottle of mercury during the conversion of the spirit vessel. Due to the fact that mercury wasn't that easy to come by, and that it could only be bought at port cities, he'd gone out of his way to make a larger purchase when he'd asked someone to help him buy some before. But then again, he was only able to get that person to buy it for him after he had almost exhausted all the money his parents had left him.

Fluorescent vines grew on the island, so he shouldn't have any problem finding those.

The most troublesome material to acquire would be the starback wolf spider. He'd already inquired about it before and had found out that the creature could only be found on another small island about 20 nautical miles away.

Before, he had been skeptical enough about whether he'd be able to successfully craft a spirit ship that he hadn't bothered preparing the materials needed for the next stage. But now that he'd successfully crafted a vessel, the most difficult part of the process lay ahead, and it would involve having to go out to sea himself.

"But then again, I could install the keel, the sculling oar, and the mast first, and then attach a triangular sail to it. Even if I'm unable to convert the sail into a spirit sail, it can still nonetheless propel the boat. I could even install a motor when I get more money in the future."

After thinking over his next steps, Zheng Yang got to work right away. He found a few sturdy pieces of wood and attached a simple keel to his boat. Then, he erected a mast that was two meters tall at the first section of the keel, before attaching a sculling oar at the stern for direction control.

After completing these tasks, he activated the boat's information page, willing for the spirit vessel's magic formation to take in and envelop the newly installed keel and the mast. The next moment, the silvery light of the magic formation spread outward and gradually melded with the newly installed structures on the spirit vessel, making the entire structure into a sturdy, inseparable whole.

"Spirit power core depleted again… 0/100!"

After vitalizing both the keel and the mast alone, the vessel's spirit power reserve was completely exhausted. An intense hunger was transmitted from the boat to Zheng Yang, which caused him to shiver for quite a bit.

My gosh! The boat is actually telling me that it wants to eat!

…